by Kim Law
Jill sat back on the couch. “What could have possibly made it worse?” And then her mouth dropped open. “Please tell me he wasn’t there with another woman.”
“I’m surprised he was there at all,” Trenton added. “Doesn’t he normally leave town for the weekend?”
“That’s the rumor. But I think I might have figured out where he’s been going all these weeks. And no, he didn’t have another woman at his house.” Heather looked from one friend to the other, and she thought about Rose’s pink bedroom and the two toy rings the girl dug out of her jeans. Then she thought about the Texas cowboy with pink paint splattered all over him. “He was there with his daughter.”
Both women froze at Heather’s words, and she could read the shock on their faces. They looked pretty much exactly how she’d felt when Rose had opened the door.
“He has a kid?” Trenton was the first to recover.
Heather nodded. “Cute thing, too. Looked to be four or five, red hair, dimples, loved my shoes.”
All three of them stared at the shoes.
“Burn the shoes,” Trenton demanded.
“And stay away from Waylon,” Jill added.
“I know.” She hated to admit it, but her friends were probably right. “But guys . . . you didn’t see him with her. He’s crazy about her. That has to be where he’s been going all these weekends, right?”
“Then why not just bring her here?” Jill pointed out.
“To the barn apartment?” Heather questioned as if outraged. The cramped quarters were a nice benefit accompanying the job, she was sure. But the reality was, the place had been bare bones. And if she had a daughter, she wouldn’t want her living in the rafters of a barn.
“Why hide her existence at all?” Trenton added. “Why not share with everyone that he’s a father instead of allowing stories to be made up about him? Assuming they are made up, of course.”
“I know that at least one story isn’t,” Jill confessed. “He definitely has cheated people out of money. I don’t know how many or exactly how long ago, but Cal asked around before hiring him. That’s why it never occurred to me that you’d be interested. Because—”
“I know,” Heather interrupted. Because she was a sucker for a con man. She got it. “And that’s exactly why I’d never get serious about him. But I just can’t sort out the man everyone says he is and the man that I saw last night. It doesn’t add up.”
“Maybe you don’t need to sort it out,” Trenton suggested. “Because like you said, you’ll never get serious about him.”
“Right.” She stood and moved to the fireplace. She wanted this thing with him to end right then and there. She’d made a mistake, she wouldn’t do it again. And it shouldn’t matter that what she’d heard and what she’d seen didn’t correlate.
Yet nothing was ever that simple. At least not for her.
She turned back to her friends. “There’s still that attraction thing,” she admitted. “And trust me. It’s strong.”
Jill nodded, looking as troubled as Heather. “And there’s your renewed need for sex.”
“I have the solution.” Trenton rose with her announcement, her voice climbing in excitement. She turned to Heather. “I’ll hook you up with one of my friends.”
“Ewww.” Heather recoiled. “No! I am not sleeping with a guy that you’ve slept with. Plus . . .”
But she bit the inside of her lip instead of expanding on the “plus.” Because she didn’t want to say it out loud.
“Plus,” Trenton said for her, showing what Heather assumed to be only a portion of her disgust. “Waylon is the one you want.”
“Just for sex,” Heather argued.
“Which is now off the table,” Trenton stated. She then shook her head when Heather didn’t immediately concur. “There’s no way you can do casual when a kid is involved, Heather. Don’t kid yourself. If you don’t nip this thing in the bud, then the next thing you know, you’ll be baking for him.”
“No, I won’t.”
“You always do,” Jill pointed out. She rose once again to stand united with Trenton. “We watched it with Danny three years ago, and you told us yourself that’s how you were with Chris and Dustin. That’s how you always are.”
“But I don’t have to bake.” Heather knew she was arguing for a cause she wasn’t sure she wanted to take up. Hadn’t she already written off sleeping with Waylon at least ten times since Rose had opened that door?
But at the same time, she also couldn’t stop herself from still wanting the man. Because now that she had opened the door to the idea of having sex again, she really wanted sex again.
And if Waylon only got Rose on weekends. Which seemed to be the case . . .
“You’ll start showing up to clean his house after that,” Trenton mused out loud.
“Doing his laundry while there,” Jill added.
“And hey, why not pick him up a little something every time you go shopping?”
“Stop it.” Heather’s voice raised. “I know.” She clenched her fists at her sides. She knew what an idiot she was with men. And she knew the guys stood passively by and allowed her to do it. They broke her heart, they stole from her. And they took a piece of her soul when they left. “I know, okay?” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I know what I’m like, so don’t make fun of me. Because what if even one of those guys had been the one?” What if loving them had righted her world back to what it had been before her parents’ deaths? “Would it have been so wrong to do all those things then?”
“Sweetie.” Jill crossed the room and wrapped Heather in a hug. “We love how you are. You’re the most softhearted, loving person we know. And you so deserve a guy who would return all your goodness right back to you. We’re not making fun of you, and you know it. We’re only telling you the things you made us promise to remind you of if you started to fall again.”
“And especially if you’re falling for someone who’s questionable,” Trenton added.
“But I’m not falling for him,” Heather whimpered. “I know the kind of guy he is.”
Only, she really wished he wasn’t that kind of guy at all.
“And you know that neither of us can truly tell you what to do,” Jill went on. She pulled back and looked at Heather. “But be careful, okay? None of us really know anything about him. Cal does like him, I’ll give you that. He’s a hard worker and he knows what he’s doing. And that’s what you want in a ranch manager. But sweetheart, we’ve all known plenty of ‘good’ people who aren’t so good for us.”
“Fine,” Heather mumbled, feeling even more dejected than she had the night before. She crossed her arms over her chest. “I won’t have sex, okay?”
Dammit.
“But I am going to have to talk to the guy again,” she went on. “I showed up at the man’s house in a trench coat for crying out loud. He’s going to want to talk about that.”
“Then talk to him,” Trenton told her. “And tell him that you made a mistake. Tell him that you don’t want sex.”
Heather frowned. Because she definitely did want sex. But they had valid points.
Waylon was iffy in the morals department to begin with, and for that alone she should steer clear. Also, Waylon had a kid. Which only made him sexier. Therefore, her choice was clear.
She had to say no to Waylon.
Waylon barely got his truck stopped in front of the three-story San Antonio home before his back door was wrenched open.
“Grandma,” Rose called out. Pure happiness lit her face. “I had the best weekend ever.”
“Did you, now?”
Waylon watched in his rearview as Madelyn James unhooked his daughter from her car seat. The sour pinch to Madelyn’s face didn’t bode well for an easy drop-off.
“I did.” Rose started searching for the toys she’d scattered during their hour-long drive. “We got a new house this time and then we painted my room—and it’s the most beautifulest pink I’ve ever seen—and then we went to this hug
e, huge store and bought me a new bed.”
After extending her arms to show how huge the furniture store had been, Rose crawled onto the floor, still gathering toys, and Madelyn turned to meet Waylon’s gaze in the rearview. “A house?” Her eyes appeared almost black in the waning light.
Waylon said nothing. He didn’t have to answer to this woman about anything.
“Yep,” Rose answered from the floor. Her voice was muffled, likely due to her cramming her head up under his seat to look for her sheet of stickers. “You and Papa need to come see it, too,” she continued. “It’s old, but it’s so, so pretty. Not big like yours, though. And it only has one floor. We don’t have any steps ’cept the ones to the porch.”
“I’m sure it’s quite nice.” Madelyn plucked the small suitcase off the back seat. “Is that why you’re late getting home?”
Rose jerked up from the floorboard at Madelyn’s harsh tone, and Waylon opened his door to put an end to the interrogation. He hated when Rose picked up on her grandmother’s nastiness. “We’re not late.” He reached past Madelyn for Rose’s seat, and Madelyn skirted back and away from him. “I told you when I picked her up that we wouldn’t be back until bedtime.”
“Which is late,” Madelyn reiterated. “She has school tomorrow.”
Waylon was well aware of Rose’s preschool schedule. Her grandparents had refused to let him attend the first day with her only two weeks before.
“Daddy?” Rose looked from him to her grandmother, and her hesitant voice shattered his heart.
He puckered his lips and blew his daughter a quick kiss. “We’re fine, Rosebud. Your grandma was just worried about you, I’m sure. She probably forgot that since I didn’t get to pick you up until Saturday morning that I said we’d be back later than normal.”
Madelyn made a grunting noise behind him. “It’s not my fault her friend wanted a sleepover during your time.”
But it is your fault you’re a bitch.
Waylon kept that thought to himself, though, and helped his daughter gather the remainder of her things. Madelyn headed for the house, apparently satisfied that he truly was going to leave his daughter with them once again, and after Rose climbed into his free arm, he turned for the house to follow. He set the extra car seat beside the garage for Rose’s papa to put in his truck, then squeezed his daughter tight as he climbed the steps to the porch. He hated Sunday nights. They were the worst. Some weeks he’d swear he left there with his chest split wide open.
“I’m going to miss you,” Rose whispered in his ear.
Pressure built behind his eyes. “Not as much as I’ll miss you,” he whispered back. Their ritual drop-off whispering soothed his soul as much as it did hers. “But I’ll Facetime you every night,” he promised. “And I’ll see you again in only five days.”
She held up one hand, all five fingers splayed. “This many, right?”
“Right.” Waylon kissed each of her fingers, wishing nothing would ever cause the uncertainty he could see in his daughter’s eyes. “And next weekend I’m going to introduce you to some of my new friends.”
Her small mouth turned into an instant grin. “Will we see Miss Heather again?”
Rose had talked about Heather nonstop since the night before. “I’m not sure if we’ll see Miss Heather or not, but you might meet her friend. The one who’s going to have butterflies at her wedding.”
Rose’s eyes sparkled. “That would be awesome.”
They were at the top of the steps now, but he had yet to put his daughter down. This was getting harder to do.
“You’ll see your other grandfather the next time I get you, too.”
“Grampa?” The eagerness in her voice made his heart heavy.
“The one and only.” His dad was one of his daughter’s favorite people. “He’s going to be living with us now. That other bedroom is for him. I just have to paint it and get it ready for him this week.”
“That’ll be fun.” She laid her head on his shoulder. “I wish I could help, though.”
Her excitement waned, and Waylon made a silent vow that he would get his daughter back. Whatever he had to do, he would be the one raising her.
“ls Grampa there now?” Rose asked. He could see matching sadness in her eyes as she peered up at him, her mouth twisted to the side. She didn’t want him to go any more than he wanted to. However, Madelyn had returned, and she and her folded arms now stood waiting impatiently in the open doorway.
“He’s not there yet”—Waylon ignored Rose’s grandmother—“but I talked to him on the phone the other day. He has one more week of working at his job, and then he’ll come here to see us.” Waylon bounced her in his arms and forced a smile to his face. He couldn’t let Rose know how badly this hurt him, or it would make it harder for her. “Do you think we should cook dinner for him his first night there?”
“I do.” Rose nodded. “Can we fix him macaroni and cheese?”
“Absolutely. I bet he’d love that.”
Marcus, Madelyn’s husband, appeared in the doorway beside her, sharing a conspiratorial wink with Rose, and Waylon greeted the other man with a nod. It helped knowing that at least one of Rose’s maternal grandparents could remember that these moments weren’t about the grown-ups. That the root of their disagreements wasn’t over who got to have their way.
It was just a shame that Madelyn was the mouthpiece for both of them.
“Hi, Papa.” Rose crinkled her nose at her grandfather when he made a silly face at her. She loved both of her maternal grandparents, but as with Waylon’s dad, she held extra fondness for Marcus. “Are you taking me to school tomorrow?”
“I sure am, kiddo. Did your dad wear you out good so you’ll sleep like a log tonight?”
Rose snickered, and Waylon finally made himself put his daughter down. He never passed her off to either of her grandparents. That felt too much like giving his daughter away. So he set her down, and then he squatted in front of her as he was doing now.
“I love you, Rosebud,” he whispered. His hunkered position burned a stake of fire through his bad leg. “And I’ll think of you every single night.”
“I love you, Daddy,” she whispered back. She wrapped her arms around his neck. “And I’ll draw you a picture every single day.”
After hugging her close, Waylon leaned back and looked at the one person who loved him no matter what. And his guilt threatened to suffocate him. He’d failed her. He had to get her back.
“I’ll see you soon,” he promised. Then he did as he’d done for far too many weekends. He turned his back, and he walked away from his daughter.
Chapter Seven
“Sometimes ‘No’ really is the correct answer.”
—Blu Johnson, life lesson #52
The smell of a blooming onion hit his senses first—it was one of the appetizers the Buffalo Nickel was known for—with the aroma of beer following at a close second. Waylon stepped inside the back door of the establishment, sidestepping a man headed down the hall to the restroom, then nodded at Callie, one of the servers he’d seen there several times before. He wasn’t supposed to come in through the back, and he was hopeful Callie wouldn’t rat him out. But he’d been running late and preferred to slip in unobtrusively. The viewing party was already in full swing, and from the sound of things, happy hour had been extended.
“Hey, good-looking. Was wondering if you were going to be here tonight.”
Waylon looked down into the eyes of a woman who’d offered to show him her “special tattoo” the first night he’d met her.
“Wouldn’t miss it,” he told her. “Just had an errand that ran late.”
Laughter cackled out from her. “I hope she was a good errand.”
The woman patted him on the chest as she moved on past, and Waylon made himself step fully into the room. The place was packed. The appointment with his lawyer had run late, so he’d already missed the first thirty minutes of the show, and as he scanned the crowd, even though plenty of chatte
r was happening all around, he noted that most everyone had their eyes on one of the many TVs.
Additionally, he noticed the cameras, which struck him as odd—having cameras there to record the crowd watching what had previously been recorded by cameras. But hey, who was he to complain? He would pull in an extra few thousand by agreeing to be part of Building a Life, and until he got his daughter back, every little bit counted.
And then his eyes landed on the woman he was searching for. The woman who’d apparently been avoiding him for the last seventy-two hours.
Heather sat with a couple of other women at a small table not far from the bar, and like the rest of the crowd, her gaze was directed toward a TV. But she did glance at the front door when it opened. A man and a woman came in, and Heather’s attention returned to the show. Meanwhile, Waylon’s gaze remained on Heather. Though work on the ranch’s backyard project hadn’t slowed over the last two days, Waylon hadn’t caught a single glimpse of the auburn-haired beauty. And though it had taken everything he had not to seek her out, he’d known his patience would pay off. No way would she miss tonight.
Chances were good, though, that she counted on the crowd being too heavy for them to have any real kind of conversation, and she might be right. But he absolutely intended to try. Because the woman had shown up at his house wearing a trench coat—and he suspected little else had been on underneath. And he wasn’t about to let that go.
Plus, she’d been nice to his kid. She could have turned tail and run the second Rose had answered the door, but instead she’d come in to see Rose’s room. And she’d oohed and aahed over her toy rings.
The entire crowd gasped as one, sitting back in their seats as if in shock, and in the next instant their eyes went wide. So Waylon found a television. Whatever was going on . . .
His thoughts came to a screeching halt as he watched Jill Sadler on the screen, demolishing a kitchen with a sledgehammer. And she wasn’t just poking at the walls, either.
Hell. No wonder Cal had fallen for the woman.
